


A Thankless Task

by DoveHeart



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Comedy, Disgruntled Employees, Gen, Parenting Challenges, Slice of Afterlife, asterius's side hustle as theseus's handler, interminable paperwork, job woes, zagreus's untamed libido
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-27 12:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30122700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoveHeart/pseuds/DoveHeart
Summary: Hades is just trying to do his job.A series of short scenes from the House of Hades.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	1. Door

“Next,” growled Hades.

The dismal queue of shades crept forward and another one stood quavering wanly before his desk.

Hades shuffled his papers. Pherenike, 54 years old, from Attica. Then a few words he couldn’t make out, and a drawing of the minotaur. Words would need to be had with Hypnos. Again.

Pherenike from Attica hovered uncertainly.

“Well?” snapped Hades. “Get on with it.”

The shade began to speak haltingly of its life in the bright world above, the banal ups and downs, the same rituals and milestones that characterised all such lives. Worthy of neither great renown nor great contempt.

A sharp crack rang through the hall. Cerberus’s ears twitched and one of his heads bared its teeth. Hades’s eyes narrowed and all the shades rippled. Hermes dropped his list in a low clamour of muttering.

Hades knew the best thing to do was to ignore it. “Yes?” he said tersely to Pherenike from Attica.

The shade wavered.

A low current of laughter rose from nearby, a familiar cocky bark undercut by a quiet female murmur. _Indolent whelp._

“Speak up,” he said.

The shade stammered.

Another whip crack. Hades flinched at the sound and felt his anger heat up another few degrees.

“Asphodel,” he said. “Next.”

The shade drifted resignedly away, and the queue inched forward. Hades glanced at the next entry in his ledger, which had nothing but _what a nice guy_ written on it in an absent hand, and an ink blot in one corner. Hypnos only snored gently when Hades slammed it on the desk.

The next shade wilted under his gaze, its words fading to nothing under a particularly lascivious moan emanating from his son’s bedchamber.

“Speak,” boomed Hades, only for the mortification of his shiftless offspring’s wails of pleasure to cut across his words, punctuated by a crisp snap of whip. Hades fell silent. All the shades had coalesced into a coruscating mass. Even Hypnos had snorted himself awake, one golden eye cracked open.

Hades kept his gaze fixed on his desk. “Contractor,” he said very quietly. “If I do not see a priority work order for a heavy door to be installed on that den of iniquity in your frivolous scrolls, then you will find yourself employed forever building ice palaces on the banks of the Phlegethon, _do you understand_?”

The House Contractor fell over itself to communicate its clear understanding of its appointed task, and from the cursed chamber, Zagreus raised his voice in blissful, wanton affirmation.


	2. Complaint

The scratching of the quill was the only sound in the entrance hall of the House of Hades, except for an occasional wistful sigh from the court musician at his seat. A soft, fluting sound and pleasant enough in its way, to be sure, but hardly music. Hades worked to the sound of his thoughts instead, like the settling of a house, full of unquiet creaks and groans.

The Pool rumbled.

Hades braced himself, plotting out the next few minutes’ work so he could continue to do it smoothly while enduring his feckless progeny’s scowls and vitriol, but it wasn’t Zagreus who came storming out. A furred, muscled bulk emerged from the roiling waters with a taurine snort.

Hypnos was almost vibrating with excitement.

Against his will, Hades sighed.

Asterius shook himself and ascended the steps. “I fear my king shall follow me shortly,” he said. “He was sorely pressed when I left him.”

Hades did not get headaches, but he believed he knew what they would be like.

The minotaur knelt heavily before Hades’s desk while Hypnos floated, awestruck, behind him, letting the newly-departed shades accumulate in an aimless congregation. “I wish to apologise for my flagrant disregard of your command, and my unforgivable failures in allowing myself to fall so ignobly.”

“Yes, yes, get up. You may wait in the lounge, if you must.”

Asterius wasn’t finished. “And I apologise most wholeheartedly in advance for the conduct of my king, and I take sole responsibility for his forthcoming-”

Theseus burst from the Pool in an indignant spray of water. “Villainy!” he cried, tossing his hair back dramatically. “Murder! _Unsportsmanship_!” He strode up the steps, eyes blazing. “That cheating little _fiend_!”

The other shades milling about moved respectfully out of Theseus’s path, shrinking away from his intimidatingly solid, sculpted form. He stopped before Hades’s desk, puffed up with fury. Asterius bowed his head so his horns almost pointed to the floor. He looked as though he wanted to gore himself. Hades, eyes on his papers, wished he would gore Theseus instead, though he’d be back out of the Pool soon enough to cause more disruption.

Still. Worth it for those few moments’ peace.

“I must say, sir, never have I seen the like! I am a reasonable man - all would attest to it! But there is one thing and one thing alone I will not tolerate, apart from monsters, you understand, and rudeness to my dear compatriot here, naturally, but the one thing I will not tolerate above all others is cheating! Not that cheating is enough to defeat my considerable prowess in the arena-”

“Of course,” rumbled Hades. He turned a page.

“-but I must _draw the line_ , sir! To bring the gods of Olympus into my arena is nothing more than a cheap-”

“I was under the impression that your own relations with Olympus were your great advantage in this task to which I have put you,” said Hades, dipping his pen in the ink.

Theseus spluttered. “The gods may help whom they will and I do not presume to command them,” he allowed, “but if you had but _seen_ it!”

Hades had seen it before. He did not need the reminder.

“Sir, I merely object to whatever lies that slithering hellspawn has fed the gods, that they flock to him in such numbers! That vicious worm, that bloody, _bloody_ basta-”

Hades saw Asterius shaking his head frantically over the edge of his desk.

Theseus trailed off with a sheepish cough. “Not that, of course, I didn’t. Mean. Actually very, er, highly good, um. Parentage. Actually.”

Hades waited.

Theseus cleared his throat.

Hades met his eyes. “Do you have something to say to me?” he asked.

“I’m very sorry, sir, and I will do better next time.”

“Correct.”


End file.
